The brass counter in the low, broad bow window of the baker’s house glittered brightly, and the pale apprentice wiped the flour from his face and gave his master’s rosy-cheeked daughter fresh warm cakes to set on the shining shelves.  The barber’s nimble apprentice hung the towel and basin at the door, while his master, wearied by the wine-bibbing and talk at the tavern or his labour at the fire, was still asleep.  His active wife had risen before him, strewed the shop with fresh sand, and renewed the goldfinch’s food.

The workshops and stores were adorned with birch branches, and the young daughters of the burghers, in becoming caps, the maid servants and apprentices, who were going to market with baskets on their arms, wore a flower or something green on their breasts or in their caps.

The first notes of the bells, pealing solemnly, were summoning worshippers to mass, the birds were singing in the garden, and the cocks were crowing in the yards of the houses.  The animals passing in the street lowed, grunted, and cackled merrily in the dawn of the young day.

Gay young men, travelling students who had sought cheap quarters in the country, now entered the city with a merry song on their lips just shaded by the first down of manhood, and when a maiden met them she lowered her eyes modestly before the riotous fellows.

The terrors of the frightful thunderstorm seemed forgotten.  Nuremberg looked gladsome; a carpet hung from many a bow-window, and flags and streamers fluttered from roofs and balconies to honour the distinguished guests.  Many signs of their presence were visible, squires and equerries, in their masters’ colours, were riding spirited horses, and a few knights who loved early rising were already in the saddle, their shining helmets and coats of mail flashing brightly in the sunshine.

The gigantic figure of Sir Seitz Siebenburg moved with drooping head through the budding joy of this June day towards the Eysvogel dwelling.

His gloomy, haggard face and disordered attire made two neatly dressed young shoemaker’s apprentices, on their way to their work, nudge each other and look keenly at him.

“I’d rather meet him here in broad daylight among houses and people than in the dusk on the highway,” remarked one of them.

“There’s no danger,” replied the other.  “He wears the curb now.  He moved from the robber nest into the rich Eysvogel house opposite.  That’s Herr Casper’s son-in-law.  But such people can never let other folks’ property alone.  Only here they work in another way.  The shoes he wears were made in our workshop, but the master still whistles for his pay, and he owes everybody—­the tailor, the lacemaker, the armourer, the girdlemaker, and the goldsmith.  If an apprentice reminds him of the debt, let him beware of bruises.”

“The Emperor Rudolph ought to issue an edict against such injustice!” wrathfully exclaimed the other and taller youth, the handsome son of a master of the craft from Weissenburg on the Sand, who expected soon to take his father’s place.  “Up at Castle Graufels, which is saddled on our little town, master and man would be going barefoot but for us; yet for three years we haven’t seen so much as a penny of his, though my father says times have already improved, since the Hapsburg, as a just man——­”